Hello everyone,
As many of you know by now, there has been a leak of the alleged title and synopsis of the next Life is Strange game. Despite the general subreddit rule about leaks not being permitted, we've decided to allow discussion about this topic as it is surface level information that would be made public the moment a game trailer drops.
However, we ask that discussion of this topic remain in this megathread. Posts and comments about the title & synopsis leak made outside of this thread will be deleted.
Thanks, and happy discussing
As for me, I am not out right against this and for a new game. BUT they have to prove they are making things right by the majority of the fanbase.
Looking back, people were pissed about DE as they should be. I absolutely did not like it. Especially how they handled a certain character. But people also did not want the story to leave off where it did and permanently be stuck there with nothing new to fix things. So something new has to happen in someway and a new game coming out is a step in the right direction.
HOWEVER they still have a lot to prove. I am not trying to discredit anyone’s concerns as they are warranted given how DE worked out. Yet there is a lot we still do not know. I am not trying spread false hope, but I think we should wait for more info to come out before really getting worked up in the wrong way.
So long as we find out they listened to us and fix a lot of things to work for the majority of the fanbase, then great. But they still have to prove it us.
Tbh, I feel pretty discouraged by the direction they took with Max’s story. Since one of the writers worked on the Homestuck epilogues. I can’t believe I’m seeing narrative elements from that story brought into Life Is Strange. It sucks.
Honestly, I don't know if this leaked news is true or not; people have become very disillusioned with other productions after Lis1.Because the producer wasn't the same,If something like that is going to happen, in my opinion, it needs to be produced by the same producer and have a good story structure.
I'd rather just replay lis 1...
I hope its like BtS is to the original LiS. A three episode game with Chloe as the protagonist in the same locations as the main title, this time being in Caledon instead of Blackwell
The setting is one of the reasons I'm not thrilled about this. Caledon was just not very interesting to me, as it felt smaller and less real than Arcadia Bay or the many locations of Life is Strange 2. Just my opinion though
probably giving too much credit for a likely-coincidence:
Chloe's bday is March 11th, 1994 (4-digit code, 0311, to escape nightmare bathroom)
Farewell was released March 5th, 2018
Reunion PEGI leak showed March 27th, 2025 release for PS5 (maybe 1 year off typo?)
predict trailer saying we'll see Max & Chloe together Reuniting for the first time since they said Farewell
I'm like 90% sure that the game was originally meant to be a DLC for Double Exposure but they later made it into a standalone game. Which is why it takes place at Caledon, they can reuse the assets from Double Exposure to make this game.
My best guess is they were gonna do three chapters similar to BTS but then moved to a five chapter game, or a three chapter game with a fourth final farewell chapter which is just a epilogue for the series based on your romances and choices.
you could be right. do you think they'll try to fit the stuff in the PEGI description (like Chloe needing Max's help) and the loose ends from DE (like what happened to Alderman, or what the deal is with Polaroids timeline, or why there were flowers at the overlook in the shape of Safi's remains, or what Daimond's powers are) all in this game?
also been wondering if the remasters were partly done to create assets for this, like the Blackwell bathroom for the DE nightmare scene, and whatever else (from LiS1 or BtS) they might want to reuse?
What you see is probably what you get. I doubt it'll be updated outside of adding the new release date and platforms.
historically, there's a lot about the game and even the basic plot that's missing from a PEGI brief description though.
if this was truly a Max & Chloe DLC (which if written well sounds great), I don't think it'd have its own PEGI entry since Farewell and Wavelengths didn't. and that'd leave the question whether they're just completely dropping DE storylines, or saving that for a separate game? I realize many players would like them to fully pretend DE never existed, and some days I feel that way too. but with just trying to predict what they'll do instead of what I want, Reunion leak says that Chloe comes to Caledon, the DE location/setting.
I specifically said it was likely a DLC at one point but then converted into a standalone game. That's the only thing I can think of that would make a 2025 release date plausible because there is no way they co-developed this game alongside Double Exposure if it ends up being a full 5 chapter adventure.
Now it is plausible that it could still only be three chapters, which could help them with the fact DeckNine fired all their senior staff, and potentially prevent what happened with DE which was having three great episodes then failing to hit the mark on the final two.
Only time will tell.
I get what you're saying. I don't understand this aspect well at all, so maybe you can clear it up for me. do the recent SteamDB changes help confirm what you suggested?
quoted from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/lifeisstrange/comments/1q6lun0/comment/ny9exsm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
The remasters haven’t touched the environment or props, only the lighting and characters were changed. They also replaced a single texture on the wall that separates the main campus from the stairs that lead to the dorms (God only knows why). There was no reason other than greed to “remaster” the old games.
ok, there goes that theory then
The summary sounds really uninspired and generic, I thought it was fake at first. I don't really think there's a game that needs to be made about Max and Chloe after the storm, but I could be biased because I always saw them as more of platonic soulmates (despite being Bae > Bay). If anything, I think I would honestly be more interested in a side character like Victoria, Nathan, or even a more niche character. Something that captures the campiness and silliness of the original game and doesn't try to take itself too seriously. But I don't have any confidence that D9 is able to do that; even for the moments I love in BtS, there was a huge drop-off in quality there.
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to be fair, the pegi ratings summary did have a basic plot outline as well.
if so, they could've improved audience reception of their mastermind plan in the following ways imo:
any one of these would increase the likelihood that players trust that a great heartwarming reunion & (depending on player choice) upbeat Pricefield endgame was part of the plan all along. while some of these issues are now past, done, can't be changed, going forward I imagine that limiting greed and setting a reasonable price for the next game might help (since as I said when purchasing DE, no one knew they'd have to pay extra $$ to eventually see her in this story)
Woah ok, so as I said I’m a Chloe fan, I always choose Bae ending! I didn’t know that people working in the game had those opinions. I also never heard about anyone being told to move on or get over it! I guess I should possibly read up on all this more. But as for the part one bit I disagree, I don’t think they have to announce it’s part one when it’s already a series, idk
DE and Reunion were supposedly one game originally that got split in half, its why people say chapters 4/5 feel so different than the writing in chapters 1-3. This is likely where they split the game and created the cliffhanger ending. So we're paying 100-160 bucks(either for standard or deluxe, potentially more) for what was originally one game.
As for marketing yeah, pre launch they gaslight fans by saying they treated both endings respectfully, and then afterwards said people should move on from Chloe, and wanting to explore a story fans never knew they wanted which considering we know pricefielders wanted them together, logically then they were trying for something different.
Oh really did not know that at all! I was just trying to weigh in with my opinion but I guess as someone whose somewhat new to the whole franchise except true colours maybe I shouldn’t have even tried.
It’s an understandably touchy subject for most pricefielders, and I don’t blame them to be honest about being negative about Reunion. It’s either in its original form from the team that supposedly didn’t like the Bae ending/Chloe, or it’s a hasty rewrite/reshoot of certain parts to try and make it more pricefield focused/friendly. Either way it’s not going to be good for them.
This coupled with FOMO early access(you were given access to the first 2 chapters before everyone else, and people didn’t wanna get spoiled so people bought it.), the gaslighting pre launch, the deflection/doubling down post launch, and then silence when they realized the issue wasn’t going away won D9 and SE no favors from the fanbase.
so, I have no idea whether they always planned to bring Chloe back in Reunion or whether they've changed their minds since writing DE. you're right that it's worthy of discussion. I aimed to explain why many are feeling and expressing what you called "negativity" in this situation. tl;dr a lot of dev statements/interviews & other incidents from announcement of DE to now have deeply damaged the trust that some Chloe and/or Pricefield fans have. and at times they were trying very hard to convince us to forget and move on from Chloe, so there could also be a sense of whiplash.
I get that you're a Chloe fan and choose Bae, not trying to imply you're not. I think it's one of those things where the more you know about the moments that led up to this, the more sense it will make why you're seeing hesitation, conflicted feelings and some negativity. if it's a well-written game that does right by Chloe and Pricefield, that'd genuinely be such a relief... though I'm still gonna wait for reviews, watch gameplay, and possibly wait for discounts if I buy it.
Opinions about Decknine got really bad. Not just from DE itself, but also how they handled marketing, social media, and what we saw behind the scenes. And because we have so little information about the new game, there's not enough to actually get people excited.
(This is why leaks are undesirable for companies -- a trailer makes a much better first impression than just an age rating.)
I'm relatively optimistic, but I completely understand why most people's first reaction is "Oh no, not again."
Come to think of it, some of the DE marketing/social media reminds me of statements made by people working on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The 100 soon before those shows had events that are still rather infamous among sapphic fans.
Yeah that’s fair enough, I guess I just don’t love to see so much negativity, may be time for me to get if the internet for today ahaha! But yeah i guess I can understand being worried about it!
well, chloe being gone was never the problem, this is why people complain still.
for comparison, here's the PEGI brief outline for other LiS games. I notice that the only characters named in these descriptions tend to be the playable MC, plus sometimes one other character with a substantial role in game events:
LiS1: Episodic adventure game following Max Caulfield, a teenage girl with the power to rewind time. With her best friend, Chloe Price, Max begins investigating the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student.
BtS + Farewell: Life is Strange: Before the Storm is a new three-part standalone story adventure set three years before the events of the first game. This collection also features the bonus Farewell Episode, which focuses on a young Max and Chloe.
The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit: Have you ever dreamt of being a superhero? Meet Chris, an imaginative 10-year-old boy who escapes reality with fantastical adventures, as his alter ego - the Awesome Captain Spirit!
LiS2: After a tragic incident, brothers Sean and Daniel Diaz run away from home. Fearing the police, and dealing with Daniel's new telekinetic power, the boys flee to Mexico for safety. Suddenly, sixteen-year-old Sean is responsible for Daniel's safety, shelter, and teaching him right from wrong.
TC: Adventure game in which players take on the role of Alex Chen, a young woman leaving foster care. After years apart, she heads to the small Colorado mining town of Haven Springs to reunite with her older brother Gabe. Alex hopes that Haven can be a fresh start, away from the issues of her past.
DE: Narrative adventure game in which the player takes on the role of Max, who must investigate the sudden death of her friend Safi. She discovers that she has the ability to travel between two timelines, one of which is where Safi is still alive. The player must use these new powers to solve the mystery of her friend's death and try to prevent it from happening.
Reunion: Chloe Price was Max Caulfield's partner in time... Losing her is Max's greatest regret. Now Chloe has come to Caledon University. Haunted by nightmares and impossible memories. Chloe needs Max's help. But Max is already in crisis: in three days, a deadly inferno will destroy the campus.
tbh I just miss Chloe lol
she needs her own game
I hope this, if it's even happening because the original PEGI text listed March 2025, covers the ground of what Chloe was doing without Max during DE and culminates in their reunion at the end tying both games together.
but I mostly just miss Chloe...
Not sure I entirely trust that the leak is true, much less that I'll like the execution of the game if it is real, but, I'm willing to wait and see what we get, although I think I'm going to need to know how it ends before deciding to buy or not. So, I'm measuring my expectations but feel a little bit hopeful.
It IS most definitely true, the information that was leaked was via PEGI, and all that PEGI gets for ratings information is always veritable, if not vague or out-of-context. Nothing fake comes through them. That said, there is surely more to the game than what has leaked already.
I don't think that's true, because it was immediately deleted.
What probably happened was a system error where stuff got published early. Nothing bearing on the truth of the information.
It wasn't only PEGI. It was also on the ratings sites of the UK, Australia and Netherlands and none upload the rating until they've been given a fully playable game.
Jesus Christ.. Just let Max and Chloe die in peace please ! (I know.. HOT TAKE !), it's a been 10 years with mutliple DLC, books, etc.. Let's move on !
Let's actually create new caracters, new powers, new scenarios, like LIS1, LIS2 (even TC..)
They were in one full game together - LiS1, one DLC - Farewell, and one comic series of just 22 issues. Yeah, there are two games of them each without the other but that's still not much over 10 years
This is clearly a pivot. Nothing in Double Exposure suggested that this was the direction they intended to go.
That said, I’m going to keep an open mind, and I hope others do too. For everyone’s sake, I hope the game is good and that we can all enjoy it together.
Honestly, I’m quite happy to get more Max and Chloe adventures, if it’s done well.
Depends on the ending you got. In one ending, Max says she's ready to reconnect with Chloe. I just assumed DE would focus on Max and then they'd bring in Chloe for the next game, that way they could milk the characters longer. So this seems pretty expected imo.
exactly did everyone like miss this part??!!
we didn't, we're just painfully aware it was clearly there to sequel bait players into buying the next game.
I think a lot of people remember devs trying very hard to sell us on the breakup and "moving on" from Chloe. so, for fans of the character and/or ship there is a mix of excitement on the one hand - seeing her again is what we wanted - but also apprehension on whether, for example, she's only being brought back to say goodbye (to Max) for good. then clearing the way for more Max-only games.
obviously, it's too early to tell which path the game will take. but imo, it's not unfair to say we've been working with some mixed messages here on what to expect.
Opinions may differ, but the game itself didn’t really give anyone reason to think otherwise. All we had was that brief dialogue at the end where Moses asks about the blue-haired girl or Arcadia Bay. Combined with the somewhat negative portrayal of both Chloe and Max and Chloe’s relationship, it wasn’t exactly natural to assume the next game would be so focused on Chloe. Because Chloe’s portrayal largely lined up with the way her detractors tend to describe her.
I don’t remember a single moment in the game when Max ever mentioned Chloe to Moses, so it’s kind of odd that he's the one who brings it up...
I agree. I also remember the conversation between Max and Diamond, where Diamond asks Max if she's ever fallen for the absolute wrong person. there was dialogue there that felt (to me) like a sort of dev fourth-wall-break trying to claim that Chloe has always been and will always be "wrong" for Max, and that it's a good thing Max is now "moving on" as she's advising Diamond to do. there were more than a few similar moments throughout the game, and my memory of them did not disappear with one Moses question/Max response at the very end.
I’m not 100% in because I’m one of the few that doesn’t like Chloe Price. In LiS1 it didn’t make sense to me that Chloe survived. That would have meant the whole town of Arcadia Bay died for her.
Having her back makes that ending cannon and I don’t like that really.
I bet you didn't complain when DE turned Bae into Bay Lite.
And in LiS1 it MAKES sense that Chloe survived. It's literally one of the endigns.
Where you were when DeckNine imposed Bay narrative on Bae with that unnesessary break up? It's time for Bayers to feel how D9 "respect" their ending!
pricefielders have been telling y'all for so long that canonizing an ending over the other is taking away player agency and it is wrong but we have been mocked for saying it prior DE's release when we all assumed it would be bay-only, because apparently it's “based” to canonize the “true” and “intended” ending, aka bay.
just a “leopard eating people's faces party” moment i've been noticing from bayers. that energy was not kept when it was bae that was implied to be left behind.
Assuming the leak is genuine and reflective of the final product (and not a hoax or part of an discarded draft or something), it kinda sounds like Max's reality warping at the end of DE is going to be used to bring Chloe back in the Bay iteration of the story (suppose there are different ways that could transpire, including the past Max having chosen Chloe in the composite timeline while "our" Max remembers the "original" Bay timeline she lived through).
Like everything, I think it'll depend on the execution. I mean, on paper, I could see them getting a lot of mileage with Max having chosen to let Chloe go and getting another second chance with her in adulthood, esp. if the story paths let players decide how the characters relationship progresses. (Given the past games, I wouldn't expect a lot of different endings, esp. if there's at least another love interest option or the two from DE both come back as well, but I'd at least hope that there's a binary choice of Max and Chloe either choosing to rekindle their friendship or romance or accept that they can't be what they used to be.)
hoax is almost certainly not the case. this was published on multiple ratings board websites and captured by wayback machines.
being a discarded draft is possible (after all, the ratings board had a placeholder release date from last spring so it's possible their plot was a placeholder from an initial submission as well), but the odds seem better than 50/50 that it's authentic and where things stand.
I think it was a typo by Square Enix, not a placeholder date.
If you look at all the past games each one gets multiple entries to cover each platform. DE has 4 separate entries - PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Switch.
But Reunion had an entry for only PS5. That means either it's a PS5 exclusive or the other platforms stayed hidden because they had the correct date of 27/03/26. I'm guessing it's the latter because SE is moving away from console exclusives even for Final Fantasy.
The biggest surprise of reunion will be Chloe haters and Pricefielders joining forces to bring Decknine down
I think a lot of people clung to the Max/Chloe combo because it was a pretty early representation of queer romance in a popular game, and the world that romance took place in was very idyllic which heightened that romance. Not to mention Ashly Burch is obviously an incredible voice talent that lent a lot more nuance and relatability to a character that wasn't necessarily written with much.
But if you actually think about the themes of the game, the intentions of Dontnod, the relationships that Chloe had with both Max and Rachel, and Max's own internal conflicts, it is pretty clear that Chloe dying is the "correct" choice. It's the one that makes sense as a conclusion to the story. I have always thought it was kind of weird that people outright refuse that in this community -- you're allowed to like the Bae ending all you want but it is narratively incongruous with everything that comes before it.
I examined the themes of the game, I actually read the intentions of Don't Nod and I saw the relationship between Max and Chloe... and I reached the conclusion that Chloe dying is the worse, less satisfying ending. So it obviously can't be the "correct" choice. It's YOUR choice, but that doesn't make it any better than the other ending.
Really. REALLY?
We have a game that is about Max and Chloe reuniting and falling in love. About them trying to find Rachel and stopping a supernatural disaster. About Max wanting Chloe to live above anything else... and somehow the right ending to that is to kill Chloe? "Oops, the whole story is pointless, let's reset it."
The ending that solves a storm allegedly caused by time travel by... using more time travel? After the William timeline, where the storm came despite Max never even getting her powers, the Bay ending doesn't even make sense. If preventing Chloe's death is what caused the storm, then there shouldn't have been a storm in the William timeline. If using Max's powers was what caused the storm, then there shouldn't have been a storm in the William timeline.
The Bae ending also fits much better the theme of growing adult and moving of from childhood. Arcadia Bay literally represents Max's childhood... and in the Bae ending she moves on from it it and therefore she becomes an adult. In the Bay ending she's stuck in her childhood, refusing to accept responsibility, refusing to accept the consequences of her actions.
You may like the Bay ending. Fine. But the Bae ending fits the game AT LEAST as much as the Bay ending.
I wrote a whole essay in response to this, and Reddit didn't like it, so I'll try to keep it short this time.
> We have a game that is about Max and Chloe reuniting and falling in love
Only if you choose for it to be by following a specific path of choices. Most do, I do, but that is not an inevitability of the game, and therefore not even a core theme.
> About Max wanting Chloe to live above anything else
This is only true at the beginning of the game. The entire point of the game is to show players the consequences of Max's choice here so the audience can choose whether or not it's worth all the harm that decision will cause.
> Arcadia Bay literally represents Max's childhood
Arcadia Bay doesn't represent Max's childhood, Chloe does. The game makes a point to tell us that the modern Bay is unrecognizable from the Bay that Max grew up in. It's not a familiar place to her anymore. But Chloe is familiar to her. This is the entire theme of the game: coming of age via choice.
Chloe hasn't come of age yet. She's still reckless, selfish, and refuses responsibility for her actions. When Max arrives in AB she's overwhelmed by big life decisions, new social experiences, etc and avoids navigating it all by running to an old friend who has also avoided it. Saving Chloe is a symbol for Max's refusal to leave her childhood behind, and the fact that Time keeps trying to kill her in every subsequent episode is a symbol that all of us have to grow up whether we accept it or not. The decision to save the Bay is the act of growing up: to let your childhood die, to mourn it, because the selfless, empathetic, and responsible thing to do is to care about the people around you. Chloe herself experiences this change on the cliffside.
> If preventing Chloe's death is what caused the storm, then there shouldn't have been a storm in the William timeline
If saving Chloe didn't cause the storm, then the Bay ending shouldn't have stopped it. The William timeline only exists because of choices that Max made, and those choices still have consequences. The William timeline is actually a really smart foreshadowing of the cliffside decision - Max can use her powers to save someone, but it will have enormous harmful consequences that she ultimately decides aren't worth it.
Time travel is weird. But the theme of choice works perfectly well here.
https://preview.redd.it/w64fgqqdzfcg1.jpeg?width=1659&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a6716c2d8e90530ed56ab0b68151cb02e717521
chat, it happened again.
I want to be clear, both can be canon. It's just that one marks Max's success in achieving her internal goal and one marks her failure. It's a coming of age story. Saving Chloe marks a refusal to come of age, and saving the Bay marks a success. Sometimes our heroes don't win. That's fine. That can be canon.
you made that interpretation up, which is fine, but don't claim it's the true and intended interpretation by the devs. both endings represent coming-of-age, both endings represent the inherent sacrifices one must make to move forward. both endings represent the passage to adulthood. this is what koch said.
I mean a very practical testament to the dev's intentions is the difference in post-choice cutscenes. In the Bae ending we see Max and Chloe drive through the wreckage of their decision for 3 minutes over an original Syd Matters song. The song is beautiful, the scene is well produced, it's fine enough.
The Bay ending scene is almost seven minutes long, with vignettes into all of the characters touched by the story, with symbolic references to Chloe's legacy and an entire new story told through images. And it's set to a very expensive licensed song from a band that was popular at the time. It's very clear which ending they put more effort into.
Beyond that, there's the matter of reference material. LIS famously wears its references on its sleeve, I'd argue the most applicable of which is Donnie Darko, which ends with a supernatural disaster in which the protagonist has to travel back in time and die in order to save someone else and avoid harmful repercussions in his community. Nearly all of the references the devs draw from have similar conclusions, but that one is right on the nose, and I find it hard to believe that they would point so obviously to these inspirations if they didn't share themes.
All of art is interpretation, but I don't think it's a leap to claim that LIS is a coming of age story.
the issue with lis fans is that y'all are so obsessed with trying to push your personal interpretations, choices and headcanons as facts that you're willing to lie about what the devs intended and at this point i think you just don't like the game for how it was written.
"All of art is interpretation, so that means I'm going to find an interpretation where I can be correct and everyone who disagrees with me can be wrong. Then I'm going to claim the devs agree with me too based on how long they made a cutscene and ignore anything they or their characters actually said."
evergreen... evergreen...
I can see how Bay narratively works for LiS1 and I do think it's subjective which one prefers. That said, I don't think we can say one was the "real" decision and the other was an extra for replay value or whatever. First of all, the creators of the original game have stated that there is no real ending and both are equally valid, so that settles the debate in and of itself. However, if I was to make a case about how the "save Chloe" ending does fit the main story, I think it's because the main theme of the game is Max learning to make the hard choices.
When we first meet Max, she's very passive and anxious about making decisions. She can't make herself submit to the photo contest out of fear of rejection. As badly as she wants to reconcile and fix her relationship with Chloe, she can't make herself reach out also out of fear of rejection. She waffles over making choices because she's worried about what the consequences could be.
Then Max gets the time powers and that seems to be the perfect answer. If she does something and it doesn't work out, she can just reset it and try something else. It seems to be the way to avoid consequences. However, as the story progresses, Max learns that she can't escape the consequences of her decisions, even with time travel powers (and, in many cases, trying to use her powers to prevent bad things she had a hand in just makes the situation worse than when she works to make them right in the present). That's arguably the whole point of the side trip when Max tries to save Chloe's father to spare her all the grief she went through only to make a world where Chloe is on life support with little time left, while being there for Chloe in the present is what helps her friend find herself again.
So, by the time you get to the end of the game, Max has been shown that she can't avoid making the hard choices or try to cheat the system, with the conclusion being her having to make one of the most awful choices imaginable without taking it back and accepting the outcome. So, the point is less whether Max choses Chloe or not, it's that she does. What she does chose is more about your experience with the story and what you decided to do and got out of it (there's a lot of material setting up Max choosing either option through the game.)
(I also think that Max saving Chloe works as a cap to the story; their relationship is the emotional core of the story, so you choice dictates whether it's a story about them being able to say good-bye one last time or them getting one last chance to be together again and fighting fate and the Universe to stay together. But that is a whole other topic.)
Also, while this is circumstantial speculation, it has been confirmed that the LiS comic book series was commissioned by the Powers That Be to follow the "Max saves Chloe" ending before they started hiring the creative team. While tie-ins admittedly do not usually affect the main games and the LiS comics (and other tie-ins) have always been marketed as a non-canon sequel via the parallel universe trope, generally, franchise tie-ins are written to be as faithful to canon as possible (at the time of their creation). Therefore, that does suggest that the Powers That Be, at least at the time of the comics' publication, regarded the "save Chloe" ending as a valid one.
I think that all makes sense if you don't think that Chloe is in any way a symbol for Max's regression toward childhood and away from coming of age. In the face of all the things you mentioned, rather than dealing with them and growing, Max runs back to her childhood friend who has also avoided those things, to the point of becoming a drug dealing dropout. Chloe allows her past to dominate her, she refuses to move onto the future. Max is mimicking this behavior in clinging to her childhood friend rather than facing the threats of adulthood.
Yes, it's important for her to make a choice at the end of the game. But we're ignoring the differences in active and passive choices. The choice to save Chloe is passive, she doesn't have to do anything else. The choice to save the bay is active, she has to go back and allow her to die. I think those choices differ greatly in terms of their weight.
Even if you're 100% correct, it still was a dumb choice for them to allow their personal feelings about the ending affect how they decided to incorporate it into DE, since it seems like the Ex-dev leak that we had last year talking about the culture surrounding pricefield/bae ending was true if Reunion is real. Speaking as someone who has been a Bay player since their first playthrough. It just doesn't make sense as to why they decided to try and flip off half of the hardcore fanbase from LiS1.
That's kind of my point, though. I don't think the way they wrote it in DE is a flip-off. I think if Max and Chloe drove into the distance through the wake of their choices at the end of LIS1, that their relationship would have ended sadly and messily just as D9 depicts it.
I mean is it any secret that pricefield fans wanted them together? I mean pandering to fans is its own argument, but ultimately you can’t do the exact thing you know fans wouldn’t like, and then be surprised about fans not buying/supporting the game at the end of the day.
As for the way they wrote it I think too is a flip off because they took player agency away. I think if they’d put actual effort into showing the break up instead of it being exposition, I think it would have gone a long way to help. Since you’re right logically speaking, it’s likely it would have been a rocky relationship. That doesn’t change the way they presented it.
As well going back to my first point, also logically speaking it was dumb of them to write a story where more than likely a large minority to a small majority of the current fanbase would not want to play.
I’m not all that interested in debating which choices may have been best from the business perspective of a studio, but as far as storytelling is concerned, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with artists telling whatever story they want to tell. It’s theirs to tell, not ours. To the contrary of your perspective, I don’t think it’s their responsibility to care what the audience thinks whatsoever, I think it’s their responsibility to say something meaningful with their art in whatever way they think is most effective. It’s our responsibility as players to accept that the game is the game. We can be mad and choose not to play it, but it’s not our story. Whatever happens in the game is what the characters chose to do, all we can do is decide if it works for us or not.
There is also the logistical issue of this being a video game. It requires dozens to hundreds of people, including talent. I can’t imagine a world where they wouldn’t have included Chloe if they could have gotten Ashly Burch on board. Without her, their options are limited, and they did what they could with what they had. You can’t give us a huge break up scene without the voice talent, and I think that a quiet, heartfelt moment of reflection with a friend is a perfectly decent way to talk about the loss of a loved one.
There’s also no more agency to showing us that scene versus the one we got. You don’t get to choose anything either way, the cards are the cards. So I fail to see how dwelling on something we can’t change is more effective than ripping off the band aid.
I mean for an artist alone maybe but as you mention they’re making a video game that’s designed to sell, and hopefully continue the franchise we can’t ignore the business perspective and since it directly may have cost us the future installments it should be of interest to talk about I think but sure we can move on.
Sure I agree they can write the story they want, but we also saw how it was received by a good portion of players as well. Both new and old.
Do you mean the scene right before Safi tries to get you to go out with Amanda?
...they literally had Rhianna as a voice actress for both DE and BTS. So your argument about Ashly is not really argument.
And again they have Rhianna.
Funny how you're okay with this lazily break up but deny Dontnod's narrative intention on "together forever" in Bae cutscene and their own sequel. Like sure D9 are allowed to NOT show break up, but hey Dontnod SHOULD show Max and Chloe's full live together, otherwise their narrative on "together forever" is nor working! So hypocritical
Go look at all of the comments on this very thread begging for Ashly Burch to play Chloe in a game that doesn't even exist yet, and then consider that maybe that same animosity played a role in their decision to use Rhianna sparsely. I can't speak to whether or not that was what guided their decision, and frankly it doesn't matter to me, but that would track imo.
Again, my issue is not with whether or not the scene is "lazy." My concern is text. In the text, does it make sense to take time away from the story DE is telling to do a fanservice cutscene to a break up that people don't want to happen? Not really. Do we lose any information by going over it differently? Nope. There is a message: Chloe and Max broke up. And we get that message unambiguously.
The promise is words. We don't see anything happen. It's ambiguous. Do they keep it? Maybe! They very well could. Maybe not! We don't know, we don't see it. Ambiguity.
except max & chloe staying together forever post-storm has been confirmed over and over again. them going through hardships but sticking together has never just been fan interpretation, but word of god. so yes, decknine breaking them up goes against the canon established by dontnod.
Confirmed where? I don't think JK Rowling's weird tweets count toward Harry Potter canon, I don't think Extended Universe comics and books count toward Star Wars canon, etc. I do know for a fact that the LIS comics are explicitly non-canon, and even if they weren't I think that a video game release in a video game franchise will take canonical priority over anything else. Deck Nine has control of the franchise, what they say goes. The game is the game is the game.
By literal the game. That importanr promise that Max and Chloe gave each other (to be together forever) was written for a reason. Then in Twitter they actually said that they would be together forever, but they did the same in game. Then when they made LIS2 they continued the same narrative on this ending. You cannot compare it to Rowling who said that Dumbldore is gay, but Harry Potter's books didn't supported this narrative - unlike Dontnod's games
Even DeckNine knew that they did the wrong thing and it will piss off people, since they tried to hid Bae in marketing, while showing Bay all the way with spoilers.
Max and Chloe break their promise to each other in the game before the play even starts. They make that same promise as kids before Max abandons Chloe after her move. If anything that’s a textual example of how naive their relationship is and how they have already shown that they’re willing to break the promise.
My entire point about Rowling is that nothing on twitter is in the game. The game is the game. All we have from the game is what’s in the game. If the creators wanted other stuff in the game, they should have put it in the game. You don’t get to retcon the text with supplementary stuff, if Chloe and Max lived happy ever after, they should have given us that rather than an (in my opinion, intentionally) ambiguous drive through the wreckage of arcadia bay.
Deck Nine is allowed to piss people off. To be honest I’m glad they were willing to in this respect. I think generally that online fandom gets weirdly possessive and parasocial about fictional characters and relationships, and demand ownership over stories from the people that make them. I think that’s incredibly harmful to art’s ability to serve as human expression. I think it’s good that Deck Nine had a vision and acted on it, even if I think the end result of the vision is dog shit.
They didn't though. If you're reffereing to BTS, it wasn't made by Dontnod who never intended to make a direct sequel and all BTS stuff wasn't made by them.
Lmao you cannot use this promise as example that their relationship are naive when Dontnod literally showed that they did not broke after that promise...
What? No lol. This is important promise that defines their future. Much like another importnat promise in Bay that Max will never forget Chloe.
Suprise, they don't obligate you to show all their future in cutscene. For narrative purpose, it is enough to show what they showed. It is the same like some stories having line "And they lived happily after" at the end without showing them happily after.
It is funny how you demand this from Dontnod but totally approve how D9 showed break up (with fucking letter and couple of texts) without showing flashbacks in your argument with Phantomvector
So by your same logic, they are allowed to piss off Bayers in DE2 by imposing Chloe on their ending? So why you complained then? If you say we should accept whatever they write, you should start from yourself first.
And by your logic they are allowed to make a hypothetical storm hit AB again in Bay ending, which would piss of Bayers and you would be fine with it?
God forbid people from loving original story and actually understanding relationships and theme of this story!
That's what DeckNine did, not fans.
Not when you take the story that was made by totally different people (1), then make the sequel that was never even supposed to exist (2) and twist their narrative in direction that OG never wanted (3).
They pissed off people but was it worth it? The game failed, narrative team was fired. All of that was easily avoidable
>They didn't though. If you're reffereing to BTS, it wasn't made by Dontnod who never intended to make a direct sequel.
Maybe I'm mistaken about those specific words being in the first game, but I'm pretty sure I'm not. Either way, even if I am, the idea that we get to assume the entire future of these characters' lives off a promise made under duress when they were teenagers is pretty wild.
>For narrative purpose, it is enough to show what they showed. It is the same like some stories having line "And they lived happily after" at the end without showing them happily after.
If they'd put a "happily ever after" at the end then that would be a textual example of them living happily ever after. They don't need to do a cutscene. But they didn't give us that either. We got a car ride and a cut to black. That's all that's in the game. That's all we get to comment on.
>It is funny how you demand this from Dontnod but totally approve how D9 showed break up (with fucking letter and couple of texts) without showing flashbacks.
Again, the way they do it in DE is definitive. It tells us what happens, so that's what happens. Doesn't have to be a cutscene. Just a statement. Max and Chloe's breakup is in the text of DE. Their life after they leave AB is not in the text of LIS1.
>And by your logic they are allowed to make a hypothetical storm hit AB again in Bay ending, whidh would piss of Bayers and you would be fine with it?
Where did I say that?
>God forbid people from loving original story and actually understanding relationships and theme of this story!
I love the story, I understand the relationships and themes, and the game has had an outsized impact on the trajectory of my life. That doesn't mean I get to levy my assumptions and wishes about the way the story is "supposed" to go towards the authors of the story. They get to write it, I get to interpret it. That is the relationship between an author and their audience and has been since the dawn of civilization.
>That's what DeckNine did, not fans.
Incorrect. DeckNine bought the rights to authorship. They have an actual legal right to tell the story however they want. We played the game. We don't have a say in how the story plays out.
>Not when you take the story that was made by totally different people (1), then make the sequel that was never even supposed to exist (2) and twist their narrative in direction that OG never wanted (3).
If you want to argue the sequel shouldn't have been made I'd probably agree with you there! I don't think it was necessary. But they did make it, it is "canon," and that's the story now whether we like it or not. If you have gripes with the text of the story, you're allowed to. Hell, I would encourage you to. But "this is not the way it was *supposed* to go" is a really sad way to interact with media, I think. We have no right to say how anything is supposed to go in a story we aren't telling.
I've said it elsewhere, but authorial intent does not matter to me. The intention of the original creators, or deck nine for that matter, bears no weight on my actual critiques of any of these games. Likewise, it does not negate the games that Deck Nine has made, they're their games to make not ours or Dontnod's anymore. The author makes the text, the audience interprets it. The text is out there. We can dislike it for any reason in the text. But "this isn't the text i had in my head" is childish.
JKR changed her mind and what she writes directly contradicts canon. koch does not, he has stood by the same things he's said ever since the game released.
you can't just take someone's characters, make things up about them that both go against the original creative intent AND established canon, and pass it off as the actual canon. that's never how this worked, and this certainly won't start now.
nobody took the characters, they were given to deck nine by whatever powers that be. they have the authorial (and also legal) right to dictate canon. we’re allowed to say their canon is dumb, but it’s incredibly childish to pretend we have any ownership over it.
personally, i hate canon. i don’t care about an imaginary encyclopedia somewhere that contains the hypothetical history of a fictional world. i care about text. what is and is not in a media text is the only thing i think should matter to the analysis of said media. failure to complete the text in a way that represents intention speaks to poor storytelling. i dont think LIS is bad storytelling, i think the in-text themes and resolutions are clear. i think that a lot of people who can’t find their preferred outcome in the text itself find a lot of external reasons to justify it
i never claimed we, as fans, have ownership over canon, those who created the characters have ownership to their own creations. legal ownership is irrelevant, we're talking about creative ownership.
anyway, it's a whole other topic when you're lying about creator intent just to try to push your interpretation as the ultimate correct one.
To me, Double Exposure was actually a really great entry to the franchise all the way up until the final episode, which is one of the biggest fumbles in narrative game history. Still, there was a lot to like. I know a lot of this community doesn't like it, and that the main reason for that is the way the game handles Chloe, but I don't really mind that. I think it rings mostly true -- Chloe was an incredibly troubled person clinging to anything she could after someone she loved disappeared/died. The foundation of her relationship with Max wasn't healthy, the relationship itself wasn't healthy, and if you chose the Bae ending, that unhealthy relationship is immediately tinged with unspeakable tragedy at its conception. It makes absolute sense to me that it wouldn't survive the baggage. Alternatively, if you chose the Bay ending, it of course only makes sense that she wouldn't be in DE.
I think, outside of the Chloe issue, DE does a really great job painting Max as someone who's been forced to reckon with the things that happened in Arcadia Bay, with the loss of Chloe, with the abuse she faced in the dark room. I think her characterization is really nice, and her relationships with her new community track very nicely to that characterization. The real failure of DE, in my opinion, was its insistence on creating an MCU of troubled teenage superhumans. It was so tone deaf and antithetical to the themes of this series it retroactively turned what was my second favorite game in the franchise into a gross cash grabby mess.
All that being said, as much as I still liked DE when all was said and done, this is the thing that could actually turn me off to the franchise. It's debatable whether or not they should have ever brought Max back, but now that they've made a choice about Chloe the absolute worst thing they could do would be to walk it back. It's so soulless and pandering to put Chloe in after telling a solid story about Max's moving on from her just because you think people on Reddit will pay more money for another game if the blue hair lady is back.
DE was great and anyone who played it could see this is the direction the sequel was going. I’m guessing the two games were conceived as a part 1 and part 2. Looking forward to this and I’ll be there on day 1 like everything else LiS.
That said, I do hope the next game (after this one) has an original set of protagonists. The games being an anthology series with loose connections to a shared world is clearly the better choice for storytelling and the backlash to DE after the entire fanbase begged for a return to Chloe and Max is why you should never listen to your fans.
I will make one exception though: If I get an Alex and Steph road trip game complete with a touring van I’ll fund development myself.
I gotta push back on the “this was the direction the sequel was going.” Through quotes direct from writers/producer they made it clear they wanted to move on from Chloe. They talked about already having already explored Max through Chloe’s perspective, and wanting to explore Max with her whole life ahead of her. As well talking specifically about the story fans didn’t know they wanted. I can provide links to game articles quoting them about these things.
I’m assuming we agree it’s no secret that most Bae/pricefield fans wanted the story with Chloe, so we can presume the story fans didn’t know they wanted was the one without her.
As well if this was the ultimate plan, they could have hinted at it after the reception for DE remained poor and sales kept plummeting, or straight up said it rather than doubling down on social media about moving on from Chloe.
Sadly reunion is probably a hasty rewrite of what we were originally going to get, and will likely suffer for it.
And I’d like to point out that fan reception was poor because it was the return of Max without Chloe, and the general poor writing of the game. Not because it was a Max and Chloe game.
I've seen conflicting statements r.e. the making of DE, so I guess I'm no sure who to believe beyond that it was a troubled production, the final product suffered from that no matter how you slice it, and the Powers That Be got a lot of fans mad over it all.
The new game could be a rewrite after DE got so much backlash over breaking up Max and Chloe, and, if so, I'd agree that I wouldn't expect much from it. (All that said, even if the game isn't good, if it does canonically establish that Max and Chloe rekindle their friendship/romance in the end, I'd be willing to make peace with everything; at least the original story isn't changed, even if we took an extra detour to get there in the end.)
On the other hand, if the leak is accurate and Chloe is playing a major role as said in the leak, that does seem too involved to have been put together after DE was released. Crunch time is sadly a thing, but you can't compress a full game that quickly.
So far as why DE and the marketing really tried to make it seem like Chloe and Max were over if they were going to have a reunion in the sequel, I can only guess that it was something between wanting to keep everything a surprise and underestimating how much fans were attached to them and wouldn't like hearing that they were no longer together. Kinda recall the theory that some of the people who spoke up about it left earlier and that the game might've subsequently been reworked to bring Chloe back (but that's only a theory).
Guess all we can do is wait and see if Reunion (or any sequel) really is coming and what its story is if it is real.
While this is almost certainly true, I'd say the pre-launch gaslighting(About how they treated both endings equally but never showed Bae/pricefield gameplay). and the post launch deflection/doubling down(Should just move on from Chloe) shows which culture/ideology won out at D9 ultimately.
Honestly I think its a 50/50, I think they had a reunion planned but I think it was aligned with what they fought for publicly through post launch interviews about telling a story that fans didn't know they wanted, and moving on from looking at Max through the perspective of Chloe as they said. So most likely a final goodbye, even if amiable. If they did do rewrites/reshoots I assume it'll mainly be around the ending. Or if its like DE where most of the relationship stuff was typically done 1 on 1, changing up those.
I think for me logically this is where the argument that it was always planned falls apart(at least in the way that pricefielders would want). If what was leaked/suspected here about how much DE lost SE, I'm pretty sure they would have tried to patch the boat as it were rather then go down with the ship if they had them getting back together. Something or anything to stop the bleeding especially if they were locked into a 2 game contract. Since the more LiS's reputation got hurt the more it's going to hurt Reunion's sales. Instead D9 doubled down for months until they realized things weren't changing and they really messed up.
As well I can't imagine SE *and* D9's market research didn't take into account that pricefield has the highest number of fanfictions/fan art across all platforms, the largest LiS subreddit behind this one, looking at the endgame statistics from LiS and its remaster show that they still make up potentially up to half of the still active player base. I'm a bay player so I don't even really have skin in the pricefield argument other than wanting LiS as a franchise to do well so we get more. I just don't understand who looked at one of the largest/most active sub factions and thought it was a good idea to almost the entire opposite of what they want. And sure pandering to the fan base is a whole other argument, but at a certain point you can't do something you know the fanbase won't like, and then blame the fan base for not liking it.
What are the chances life is strange reunion gets shown at xbox developer direct on January 22
None. Video Games Chronicle confirmed that the fourth secret game, which was previously up-in-the-air, is going to be "a smaller scale original game from an Xbox studio", which doesn't fit the bill for Life Is Strange: Reunion.
hey look at my flair; didn't expect that to become "don't you forget about milking me"
😭😭😭
I don't think I have much to add besides I feel so pessimistic about this next game. I honestly would rather them just not make another game than for them to butcher Max and Chloe further. I do actually hope the best for D9, you know, there's plenty of people still working there that do deserve work, especially work that they find fulfilling. I somehow doubt making Square Enix's LiS games have been that given upper management gives in to whatever Square Enix wants from the company. Life is Strange deserved better than Square Enix. It's not out of the question it gets sold, but I also really doubt it'll ever reach the heights of LiS and LiS2 ever again.
Late to the party, mini rant incoming: Honestly, as someone who absolutely hated LIS2 back in the day for the direction it took away from Max & Chloe and then loved BTS for doing the opposite when I’d lost faith in DontNod for doing the former, I rather enjoyed TC for the small town aesthetic even with its story faults and blindly believed that Deck Nine could handle a sequel to Pricefield… then DE came out and holy shit was it like a punch to the face, gut and groin all at the same time. I still get whiplash thinking about how confident I was about their abilities. But, well, you know what they say… fool me once, Deck Nine. I’m not making that mistake again and I have zero faith in them any longer, so even if by some miracle this next game is full of fan service and a happy reunion/ending for pricefield it will now be forever tainted by their characters being completely bastardised and ripped to shreds in Double Exposure. I will not forgive them for that, or forget it. Reversing course cannot repair the goodwill they burned with the fandom by lying to our faces repeatedly. I cannot believe I’m saying this, but in hindsight I wish that I had never begged and pleaded for a pricefield sequel, because what DontNod did in LIS2 turned out to be infinitely better than what Deck Nine ultimately gave us.
I always wanted the series to stay an anthology thing, and yea it really should have
DE was the biggest scam of the century. D9 should be disbanded
will i buy it? yes. will it be dogshit? also yes
I'm going to buy it, because of course I am, but there is absolutely no way I'm shelling out for super deluxe triple diple version like with DE. You made a fool out of me once and once is all I need. Also, for the love of anything you hold dear, DO NOT PREORDER.
So I've just seen that the Xbox Developer Direct in two weeks on 22nd January will feature a currently unannounced game, described by VGC as "a promising indie title from a third-party publisher". Now I don't consider Life is Strange to be indie but you never know...
In addition to that, discussion on the ResetEra forums mentions that "Jez Corden and Shpeshal Nick guessing Square Enix might be on Dev Direct too", which is certainly interesting if true.
One to keep an eye on...
Edit: Ok, I don't think it's LIS. Shinobi was asked on ResetEra forums about the unannounced game and he replied he wasn't personally excited. As he's previously tweeted about liking the LIS series, this rules out LIS being the unannounced game IMO.
Edit 2: Definitely no LIS announcement at the Dev Direct. VGC have updated their article to say the unannounced game is from Xbox Game Studios. Now I think it's more likely Reunion will be announced at Summer Xbox Showcase - same as Double Exposure.
True Colors was announced in the Spring.
if I make a post talking about symbolism across the series, that's mostly about other games (including DE) but also has a small part about leak content (like the inferno) - will that get taken down? would the only option within sub rules be to put the whole post in a comment here? fwiw if it's allowed, this is an actual post I'd like to make, not a what-if.
not the mods but wanted to tell you that id love to read a post about that if you end up making it
thanks! I'm still hoping to do a post on the main sub, with the required cuts/parts censored out (so, released games only). don't want to overpromise so gonna say "maybe this week or next"
Until the game (if the leak is real) is released, yes - if posted outside this megathread it would be deleted. You can post it in here for now, or as a separate thread once there's an official game announcement :)
you should reconsider that, because it's awful policy.
it's LiS news/discussion (unlike a lot of the stuff that front pages here), it shouldn't be quarantined to a thread nobody is going to see after a few days.
thank you for getting back to me.
I have low hopes, DE was such a mess, and I just don’t trust Deck Nine to deliver anymore! I think it’ll be interesting to see how they’ll accommodate the ‘Bay’ ending into this (assuming this leak is true that is). However, they’ll probably merge the endings together using Max’s timeline/traversing abilities so it doesn’t really matter. It’s a little bit cheap, and I don’t love it, and it was never even implied that LIS 1 was even affected by it in DE, so it’s like 🤔.
Knowing this, I will play it (if it’s real), but I’ll be coming into it with very low expectations and I hope to be somewhat surprised by it, but I honestly doubt it 🤷♀️
Somehow, Chloe Price returned.
Well, I'm worried. After DE, I simply don't trust 'them' to deliver a satisfying story with a good plot and good characters with proper development. And I don't dare to guess what treatment Max, Chloe and their relationship might be getting. Perhaps even some unreversable character death just to rub it in?
Nothing would make me happier than to be proven wrong and get a game I will enjoy. But I'm not going in blind this time.
My opinion is worse... I think that after DE, they'll make a totally fan service with Max and Chloe
That’s my fear, that they saw all the hate from Pricefielders after DE, so they’re going to heavily pan to that side of the audience, while ignoring everything else about the game 😬. I hope they don’t do that, as I feel it’ll just be as bad as DE was, but we’ll have to see what happens I suppose 🤷♀️
Well, megathreads is a way to have discussions about something die a slow death... but it's still an improvement over deleting any mention of the news.
I'll repeat what I wrote originally:
The way I interepret the PEGI text, it suggests that timelines have been merged. Chloe has impossible memories and what is more impossible than having memories of her own death? Of course, it can be any other explanation, but this one is most likely. And it solves the issue of the Bay ending getting respected. While it would be balanced to have the Bay ending disrespected after DE disrespected Bae, it's better to stop doing that altogether.
As for how they merge the timelines? I don't have big hopes. I think it will be revealed in the mentioned recap of previous games. I think they'll end the recap of DE events by saying that Max either unintentionally merged Bay and Bae by merging those Safi timelines... or that she realized she can do that and merged them deliberately offscreen.
While the text doesn't mention it, I think that Safi will (sadly) play a big part. The warning section mentioned frequent discussions of suicide. As much as I want it to be Kate returning, the most likely explanation is Maya. And if Maya gets frequently talked about, that means Safi. A lot of Safi. And if Safi plays a major role, she's most likely the villain. Why?
Because the text mentions that a building is set aflame. It also says that Caledon is threatened to burn down in 3 days. (Bravo on the originality, btw! I never expected they would recycle the same thing after they already recycled it in DE.) So it's probable that mad Safi still didn't get over the book deal and tries to burn down Caledon.
What is a bit concerning is the description of the protagonist getting roofied. Why is D9 obsessed with that? We have it in BtS, we almost got it in TC... and now this again? Is that someone's fetish?
Also, speaking of Chloe, there's a non-zero chance that Chloe is the protagonist this time. And if she isn't, it's possible she plays a big role. DE didn't suggest that, but I suspect major rewrites of the game after DE bombed. One of the options they had at their disposal was to rewrite existing scenes of a love interest and give them to Chloe. For example replacing Amanda with Chloe in scenes originally planned for Amanda. That would be a double win!
My ending thought about this is that I don't expect the game be good. Despite having Chloe back, I think it will still be plagued by bad writing like DE. So unless it's a big surprise and the game is really good, I don't plan on getting it. I'll just watch a playgthrough to be informed, like with DE.
Still, if they bring back Max and Chloe together, I think it's a good thing the game is happening. Better if they attempt to fix their mistakes than leaving the franchise end with DE. It would be so much better to have Pricefield back together, because it would prevent detractors from going to PF and Bae discussions with their "well, they BrOkE uP anyway!" nonsense.
Yeah, hearing that Chloe is having “impossible memories”. It mostly confirms the fact that they will merge the LIS 1 endings together! The thing is, how will they tie the endings together from DE? Like In Bae, they broke up, so like how will they be brought back together? How will it work with the Bay ending, will all of this happen offscreen, or will it just not be mentioned at all? I don’t know, and I fear this will get really messy and confusing, but I guess we have to wait before we give our final judgments on this!
The annoying thing is, the LiS1 endings can't be merged, as they don't exist as separate timelines. The storm is the merging of the overlapping rewrite of the only timeline. If you go Bae, the original is replaced. If you go Bay, the original never changes, no storm. There are no branches and if there were, a storm would happen. Not only that, but other people outside of Max, don't get memories of the rewrite.
D9 has no idea how time in LiS works and sadly neither does half the players.
I guess this is the least of the issues. They can come up with some timey wimey explanation. Like that the presence of the storm allowed the timelines to be split.
Or they'll use an explanation similar to how DE timelines were split. That was Max doing it, unintentionally... so maybe it happened before with Bae and Bay?
But that would still violate the whole point of the storm. They cannot be split, in any way or form, without contradicting the story.
Chloe texted Max in the end of DE, because she heard of a storm at Caledon. They can easily follow it up with Chloe deciding to check on Max anyway... and the timelines merge as she's on route.
Alternatively, it's the merging of timelines and Chloe suddenly remembering her death, which leads to her seeking out Max. Either because having memories from another time has to be tied to Max... or because the memory of hear death, alone, made her re-evaluate her priorities and she now wants to reconcile with Max.
As for how it happens in the Bay route... the same. I suspect that the game will take place after the merge, so we will play only one - merged - timeline. What I wrote will still be true, just that Bay Max didn't experience the message from Chloe.
Which brings the question... will we choose between playing Bay and Bae Max? Or will we play a merged Max?
I think that’s really my main question, not so much how this will affect Chloe, but how will it affect our max? Like I assume it’ll just continue with our play through from DE and that we can continue with either our bae max or bay max? However, I don’t know so I can’t say a lot here 🤷♀️
I have very little hope for this lol
its life is strange so ofc ill be here again when the new game appears, if its really good ill buy it soon after release, if its bad like de was im gonna get it when its on a bigger sale
To be honest, there are aspects of DE that in the hands of more competent writers could be salvageable (also the possibility of Max and Chloe reconciling) but we’ll see
I personally read the Chloe & Victoria interactions more as them becoming close friends after Arcadia Bay rather than anything romantic (also based on the comics and her letter in LiS2 post Bae Victoria actually kind of sounds like a person I wouldn’t mind seeing again)
It is kind of hilarious that by saving and encouraging Safi Max essentially accidentally turned her into a budding supervillain
I agree about DE having some salvageable bits, and also about Victoria. in the comics she had some interesting stuff to say about healing, and also hints at redemption. like wondering why it sometimes takes a huge tragedy for some people to change how they treat other people or even how they view the world. a lot of this was said to Chloe in the context of friendship, not romance, in the last two volumes too. in the hands of good writers she could have a meaningful, not-purely-fanservice role in Reunion. not betting money on it, just saying it's possible.
I'm hoping they have something more interesting and unexpected ahead than giving Safi a supervillain role in the story. also if they go that route idk what their plans are for players who chose Agree (Max supports Safi) instead of Refuse? from the leak anyway, hard to tell if the "inferno" is set by a match or more of a falling comet situation.
I guess it could go either way with Safi. While there’s some reasoning behind it (her mom and Lucas are terrible people who screwed her over and lead to the death of her friend) she still seemed a bit unhinged by the end of the game
the game's ending seems to lean in a direction where writing Safi off as evil (or, like, supervillain-with-sympathetic-backstory or smth) is one valid interpretation. that would be consistent with choosing Refuse.
but if she's just an evil antagonist now using her powers to hurt people, my question is how do they write that in a way that's both satisfying/non-dismissive to players who chose Accept, and also isn't so predictable as to be boring? like if she does exactly what the "Safi is evil, irredeemable" interpretation expects she will... where's the engaging story in that? genq by the way. I am interested in yours and others' perspectives.
edit: if interested, I shared thoughts / character analysis on Safi here, here, here, and here.
I’ll be there no matter what. People hated DE and I loved it…
DE lover here checking in as well
I'm happy you liked it. I did not, but don't let anyone tell you you're wrong for liking it.
i'll be there at the right price. these games are usually too short to justify the day one asking price, and that shortness usually results in cheap physical copies shortly after launch from people that want to play and flip it.
the timing on this one probably won't work out AS nicely as DE unfortunately where it launched at halloween in a year the black friday sales started super early so it was only $40 new in box like 2 weeks after launch.
Same
I’ll be honest I’m gonna be there no matter what. If it sucks at least I’ll decide that for myself.
damn I hope Chloe is voiced by Ashly Burch
The voice flashback in DE were done by Rhianna DeVries. I doubt they will recast.
Everyone wants that... but I can't see that happening. Unfortunately. D9 has been trying to replace Ashly with Rhianna since BtS. The excuse of the strike doesn't work anymore. If that was true, then they'd bring back Ashly for those few new lines in DE. Instead, they chose to be either cheap or spiteful.
Let me say something controversial about Rhianna please 🙏
Nevermind I’m just gonna say it anyway. Preparing for the downvotes. Rhianna DeVries has done such a bad job with Chloe. When you compare Ashley Burch’s expressive, iconic voice acting with Chloe and then Rhianna’s awkward mumbling into the mic it is so noticeable. Honestly as a whole, the BtS Chloe and the original Chloe seem so different that they don’t register to me as the same character.
Well of course they seem different. She's 16 in bts and 19 in lis. People develop their character a lot during those years and I can only imagine meeting Rachel changed her personality even more.
Not that much. She just comes off as a flanderised version of Chloe and I think Michel Koch himself said something like that.
Rhianna has the exact same problem in wavelengths and DE they doesn't sound like Chloe at all.
Like their rerecords of Ashly's lines in DE were awful.
This attempt at a watsonian explination for a doylist problem has always been weird to me.
Edit: Fixed the pronouns
The first time I heard Rhianna's lines in DE, it didn't even register that they were meant to be Chloe. It was just a moment later when I realized that I know those lines and they are Chloe's from the first game...
And anyone that's seen any fan projects knows that there are people out there that can better mimic Ashly's Chloe extremely well. (Check out the better then audio drama on youtube the Chloe there is phenominal)
Rhianna was just their panic person they had around because they already hired them to do moca their not even anywhere near Ashly's register Rhianna's voice is significantly lower.
I dunno, I never really had a problem with the recast. Was it seamless? Nom but, whenever I play BtS, I quickly forget about it and it's just Chloe doing her thing. Course, I'd rather see them bring Chloe back (assuming it's done well and all that) than write her out for good because they can't or don't want to bring back the original actress. While the actors bring a lot to their characters, I'd rather the story be prioritized over the casting.
They are like an octave lower. No offense but I find people who say they don't hear a difference to be completely unbelievable. I think the BtS Chloe just doesn't sound like her in the slightest. Every time I see a scene of BtS or the voicelines in Wavelengths/DE it takes me out of the story because of how off she sounds.
Also I don't think Ashly was the hold up with bringing Chloe back I think it was sqaure holding some weird grudge. Unless the VA union really did boycott the series.
I can tell the difference, I just find the recast doesn't take me out of it (probably helps that, as an animated character, she still looks the same vs. having a totally different appearance)
My go-to comparison would be Karl Urban playing Dr. McCoy in the Kelvin Timeline Star Trek movies; he doesn't look or sound exactly like DeForest Kelley, who originated the role in the original TV show and prior movies, but he was a perfect casting choice and sold you on the idea that he was playing the same character by his performance.
And, as noted before, the in-universe element matters a bit more to me than the out-of-universe stuff. With some exceptions (like the late Chadwick Boseman's portrayal of Black Panther in the Marvel movies), I'd rather see a character's story continue than them be retired just because a recast was needed.
Look at it this way; if the possible new game does fix Max and Chloe's relationship, wouldn't that be worth the recasting?
Unfortunately doubtful unless something changes with the current policy (I think she went on record a while back saying she’s not going to do any non union projects anymore)
The synopsis that has been leaked is comical enough for me to believe. I feel like it’s only up from here, so I’m ready for the mosh pit shaka brah
Deck Nine about to reverse the car and back it up over the body they just ran over just to make sure it's dead.
Deck Nine the type to make sure Alyssa gets hit with every object in the first game lol
Loool!
I’ve never been so unenthused for a LiS game in my life after DE. It sounds like back tracking to cater to the fan base you’ve pissed off in some of the most disrespectful ways possible. Not only that, but now you clump Chloe into this already jumbled mess of a story & Avengers-esque plot line you seem to be setting up as well. I just can’t see the writing for this game being good as the damage has already been done and Deckine at this point can’t seem to write a good story to save their lives. It isn’t Life is Strange at this point, just seems like some sort of fan fiction.
This will be the fourth time Deck Nine return to our partners in time and their paths in life - they really can't stay away.
First game is a prequel focused on two existing characters. Then a second attempt with Farewell.
True Colors is a game that's been called out for being a rip-off of other DontNod projects. They even rebranded to the same initials as DontNod when they got the LIS license. (You will never unsee it after having it pointed out to you: https://www.reddit.com/r/lifeisstrange/s/RFkWH9fosC). Deck Nine is known for writing as they go, i wouldn't be surprised if they rewrote True Colors closer to release. Deck Nine has been leaked by insiders to have the game director literally pulling his hair and asking the writers' room for ideas on how to end Double Exposure after the plane already took off, so to speak. And you can tell they've done so by the corners they cut to tell the new story (how low budget can you get that you can't even show Rachel Amber's birth mother properly looking OD'ed and strung out besides laying on her back with a rock-and-roll t-shirt? 🤦🏻♂️)
Third game is Double Exposure, which I won't even begin to get into. And now, they feel the need to take us back into the world of Max, Chloe, or both together yet again...
I must be the only one who believes in second chances here. Not saying I’m gonna rush out and buy the game, but people deserve redemption. If they can course correct here, I’m willing to give them that chance. Sure won’t be pre ordering or anything, but I’ll wait and see what the sentiment is when it comes out.
It would be one thing if they genuinely gave it their all for the first game but made a few missteps. But from what I’m reading, they used the original IP as a money grab and couldn’t care less about writing a cohesive, engaging story and showed little to no respect for the fans. I don’t think that’s redeemable.
It appears like the developers wanted to create a game where the main character had the ability to jump into different dimension but didn’t think a new character would sell so they brought back Max, gave a terrible excuse for why her old powers “don’t work anymore,” but coincidentally gained new abilities at the same time. And you can tell they didn’t do their research because all the old characters who meant so much to her life? Entirely erased.
I genuinely question if the developers played the game or simply read the Life Is Strange wiki, watched a few scenes on YouTube and jumped straight into writing. And from what I’m reading, they didn’t take that process seriously either. I’m not surprised that the end result was a poorly executed continuation of the original game. Zero care went into the process.
Even when it comes to bringing Chloe back, I don’t think the writers will “give you the best story” they will simply have Max and Chloe bicker back and forth for the first few episodes, flirt here and there, then finally “get back together” if players choose that option. Their dynamic will not be the same as the first game since the original developers never intended on them being a couple. The characters were written as best friends and fans made their relationship romantic.
Jumping between dimensions is a theme in the LiS comics as well. I haven't played DE, but might they have been inspired by that?
Yeah. I’m not optimistic, but I’d love to be proven wrong.
I don’t buy it, I don’t really believe the leaks are real.
The leak is literally from PEGI.
It says 2025.
ratings boards aren't always correct because things can change, and you do from time to time see things pop up for ratings that either never come out or are WAY later than when they popped up.
that being said, the odds of that being correct are better than 50/50 (and given that the ratings boards rated a native ps5 version of lis remastered back in october, it wouldn't be surprising to see a presentation very soon where they announce reunion and say "also, available today LiS re-remastered for while you're waiting!")
Even if Reunion features the option for Chloe and Max to get back together (and it most likely will, considering the title) and even if the both of them are well-written and in line with their characterization from the DONTNOD games (and they most likely won't be, considering Deck Nine's track record) that still doesn't undo the damage Deck Nine did to the series. They took two of the greatest games ever made, powerful yet comforting indie titles about growing up and learning who you are, where the powers are more a metaphor that serves the characters' journey rather than something tangible that needs an explanation, and decided to follow up this legacy with basic surface-level Marvel wannabe trash.
Deck Nine has proven time and time again they don't understand even a single element of the series, like someone who looks at a great work of literature and sees nothing more than words put together. There's no poetry in the games Deck Nine produce, not an ounce of soul or creativity. This really isn't all that surprising considering a literal Nazi was/still is on the development team and even attempted to sneak white supremacist symbols in at several points (look this up if you haven't heard about it).
In my mind, the only Life Is Strange games are the two masterpieces by DONTNOD and that's it. Everything Deck Nine makes is just expensive fanfiction. And before anyone says something like "Deck Nine own the franchise now, they decide what's canon whether you like it or not!", remember that it's absolutely ridiculous to let a corporation control how you enjoy a story. Life Is Strange is a game about choices- whatever choices you made in your playthrough are the right ones, whatever ending you chose is the right one, whatever happens to Max and Chloe after that is up to you.
I wanna give you 1000 likes 💯💯💯 It’s gonna be yet another attempt to copy DontNod. Also sticking with LiS and LiS 2 being canon. I got disliked for this in other threads 😂
No, you don't understand elements of the series and it shows.
You want what you want, but that isn't how it works.
The powers are a metaphor of characters journeys, if you actually paid attention to Safi telling Max how she got them, then you would know this. It fits right in.
And it isn't about choice, it is about dealing with the darkest aspects of life. You and the rest of the fandom seems to not get this.
Here's a thought. They bring Chloe back. Some wibbly wobbly timeline smushing between living and dead worlds combined BAY and BAE worlds and Chloe is alive regardless of your choice at the end of LiS1.
If you chose BAE she comes back to reunite with Max. HOWEVER, if you chose BAY, she still tries to reconnect, only this time she's in a relationship with Victoria and Victoria comes with her.
Interesting idea. That said, I kinda think we won't be getting a wide array of variations to the storyline (past games at least rarely have more than two options for any story-changing details), so I'm guessing that Chloe will be single no matter what and any choices are on how she and Max move forward.
(All this assuming the leak is real, of course.)
Also, based.
I said what I said. 🙂
I’ve been out of the loop what happened to deck 9 why are people mad?
Some people simply want D9 to finally leave Max and Chloe alone. Or even the franchise.
Some people are cynical and skeptical that they are bringing Chloe back after they character assassinated her in DE and told us that we have to move on from her.
Some people are mad at the creatively bankrupt writing. A disaster threatens Caledon? Again? A character is roofied? Again?
And there are also people who liked DE because it broke up Pricefield and got rid of Chloe. Those people are not happy that we are getting Chloe back and reunited with Max.
And some are still mad over DE and keep blaming Pricefielders for anything and everything.
Because people want to be mad at someone. Outrage junkies drink their poison, and it tastes sweet, so they want more, and now they're pissed at the game that haven't even come out yet. Don't bother, these kind of people will never be happy, they're just incapable of it anymore.
i think people just have standards and it's a foreign concept to you.
Its not fair to dismiss the criticism that DE got like that. We didnt have this kind of problem with any other LiS game.
DeckNine broke up Pricefield in Bae ending for no reasons and went against Dontnod's narrative on Bae (no break up), they mischaracterized Chloe to make break up possible and so they alienated half of audience and game failed. But NOW D9 are trying to win this audience back which is so hypocritical after what they did and how much they lied to Baers in DE marketing.
Plus DE itself is mediocre at best, it tried to replicate original game but did it soulessly and now DE2 doing the same AGAIN.
DE wrote Chloe out of the plot (if purported leaks are to be believed, because some people high up absolutely hated Chloe and the VAs who voiced her) in a very hamfisted way that no one liked, and all signs point to Reunion being an obvious way to try to rebuild the bridges they burned by bringing back Chloe.
Maybe I’m just being a cynic but so far this is just giving me fanservice vibes.
Deck Nine destroyed the legacy of the original Life is Strange game with their willfully malicious and incompetent writing and forever tainted its beloved characters and their relationship, and now they're threatening to do it again.
info about a possible upcoming game was leaked through a ratings site. seems like either DLC for Double Exposure, or "Double Exposure 2." according to the info, the game title is "Life is Strange: Reunion" and it will involve Max seeing Chloe again (regardless of Bae or Bay LiS1 ending).
it also says Chloe is "haunted by impossible memories." a lot of people are theorizing that Max will merge the "Bae timeline" and "Bay timeline" into one combined timeline.
That's what it points to, but it's so wrong and stupid. Bae and Bay aren't two separate timelines. Bay = time was never changed. Bae = timeline was rewritten, brief overlap of the rewrite causes storm when they are merged.
Too many people apply 'two endings means two timelines' and it has never meant that. It's either one exists or the other, not both
Or maybe Max warping reality at the end of DE changed the past so Chloe didn't die or locked the "save Chloe" ending into the past? Could mean anything.
to clarify. I am stating that the "merged timeline" is a common fan theory. it's not a theory that I like, or that I want to be true. I'm not here to defend it, if you want to come at someone about it, I'm not the right person. don't shoot the messenger etc.
Not gonna play anything from Slop Nine ever again but I'm happy for the people happy about this. 🤷♀️
If this game doesn’t just fully retcon the trash fire that is DE no one is playing this slop
I fully agree. DE is a joke. They ruined Max as a character. Safi is a terrible character. The whole "Avengers initiative" ending along with the marvel-esque "Max Caulfield will return" being slapped on the screen. Chloe suddenly being terrified that Max will rewind everything. HER BEING BEST FRIENDS WITH VICTORIA CHASE!?. The mystery of Max's new powers being tossed out the window. Deck Nine has killed LIS for me.
The only hope I have is the possibility of a new writing team righting the ship. Word got out that they laid off practically the entire team after DE came out. Makes me wonder if they threw out the previous writers and hunted for some good ones.
It is most likely that their writing B team took over. The team that worked on the Expanse game. And it's possible they rewrote the most offensive bits. That's why I have a sliver of hope that Reunion might be better than DE (although I don't expect it to be better than mid).
are we sure whether Reunion was written before or after DE came out though?
Based on information and leaks found by some LiS sleuths, it seems that the original DE was split into two games early in development. That means that if DE1 was the first half of the original DE, they at least had the second half of it to work with. And there are also hints that the game has been worked on in parallel with DE1. After all, it is unlikely they started working on it only after DE1 released.
So while we are not sure, it is quite likely that the story of Reunion (if it even was called reunion back then) was done before DE released... and after that it was probably reworked.
do you have a guess about whether the devs (especially writers) who worked on Reunion would've been the same ones who, according to last year's ex-dev leak, pretty much hated Chloe and discouraged positive ideas about her for DE?
also wondering if any of the ones who were on social media saying to "move on" from her were involved
thanks. thought I remembered something like this, but I was out of the loop for a long while.
my thing is, if part of the plan was always to provoke certain negative feelings with the breakup and the Chloe bait-and-switch marketing for Part 1, then offer us relief in the form of a second full-priced game with Chloe's presence as a main selling point - that's such an incredibly cynical way to cash in on our attachment to the original characters. like I hope I'm wrong that this is what happened. but if I'm right it's a terrible look for D9 and SE, and I'm inclined not to fall for it, i.e. not to pre-order the game or buy it at launch, if at all.
even without the Chloe-specific bad taste in the mouth, it's sad to compare how release cadence was handled for LiS1 vs. DE. in LiS1, you got 5 episodes for one purchase at AA pricing, and you knew from the start that you were playing the first of 5 episodes. if Reunion is full-price, then with DE we started that game not knowing we'd been sold half a story and would have to pay up again to see that story concluded. would've felt less anti-consumer if we knew DE was Part 1 of 2.
this is such a conflicting moment, because I really, really want to come at this with more positivity. perhaps there will be something more hopeful to shift my perspective when the game is officially announced? ideally sooner than later
Who writes a sequel before the first sequel is released. That seems to be jumping the gun.
It would explain a lot if the plot was AI-generated. It's filled with holes, and plot lines that are brought up and dropped for no reason.
I know what you mean. That detective plot especially makes no fucking sense. It was also a pointless detour that adds absolutely nothing to the story. Heck if you get caught by him, it literally rewinds time and Max is careful not to say that time rewinded because the writers don't want the player to dwell that they wrote the gameplay into a corner and broke their rules.
The idea of someone actually being suspicious of Max and Max having to be careful with her powers was great. It is something new, unlike in the original game where Max used her powers without anyone noticing.
But as much as the idea was good, D9 not only flopped the execution ("10 years ago a big storm destroyed your town. Now your friend died. Therefore you are my prime suspect!") but completely kileld the subplot without any resolution.
Weird af that mods are forcing this into a mega thread for no reason but OK I guess. 😂
meanwhile genuinely off topic stuff routinely floods the front page like LR, tell me why, and most recently red dead redemption.
it seems like they are just trying to suppress discussion about the new game, because that's exactly what megathreads do, and this decision will cause people to miss new news about the game when it's locked to a thread that's 2-3 weeks old and nobody is looking at. megathreads get views for a day or two, then get ignored.
Look, it's a rumor and, if true, could spoil things that some users might want to be surprised about when the marketing hits. If it turns out to be real, we'll be discussing it plenty elsewhere. Don't see how it's a big deal.
then they can just avoid threads about it. if a name bothers them so much that they view a headline with it as a spoiler, they have bigger problems than the fact PEGI posted that.
Guess I don't see a rumor being worth getting worked up about.
I don't think it's for no reason when everyone and their aunts were posting about it without offering anything new. It was clogging up the sub so better to throw it to a megathread.
It literally COULDNT clog up the sun cause the mods kept deleting ANY mention of it like they were getting paid to do it by D9 😂 all a megathread does is help suppress the conversation. Which is pretty in line for the mods here tbh, given what happened when DE released
It wasn't clogging the sub. There was always one big post where people concentrated to discuss the game. And a few others, of course, but it wasn't clogging anything. It was proportional to the importance of the news.
It wasn't clogging up the sub because D9/SE sent the order down to the mods to delete every mention of the leak even though it was posted on official sites. Every single post mentioning it got deleted after a few hours. I'm rather surprised the mods even allowed this thread. I guess once they realized news outlets were all over it, they couldn't do anything about it and gave up.
Eh, I hate D9 but I'm not that conspiracy pilled. It came to a point that I was seeing the post again and again, so I can believe that they made the megathread to avoid everyone posting the same over and over again.
Sorry it's not a conspiracy the mods literally got exposed for doing PR for D9 because the head mod was an employee/ex-employee.
He claims he quit but a brand new account was added to the mod team at the same time...
He also mega-threaded ANY mention of Chloe in the lead up to DE's release and was handing out bans like crazy trying to spin things positive for D9.